The Junta Strikes Back

The military has decided to get really heavy handed in response to the rising protests. There are at least nine dead, and mostly likely many more. According to the headline in The Irrawaddy Rangoon is under siege. A quote from their lead story says: "Rangoon was covered with gunfire smoke on Thursday as security forces and armed military troops used an iron fist to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators in the second day of the Burmese junta's crackdown on the largest democracy uprising in 20 years."

According to Mizzima News
troops from Central Burma are marching on Rangoon but it's not clear if they are coming to put down the protests or support them.

Here are some contacts if you are inclined to action:

GROUPS

AOTEAROA
New Zealand Burma Support Group,
14 Waitati Place, Mt Albert, Auckland. Tel: (64) 9828 4855

AUSTRALIA
Australia Burma Council, PO Box 2024, Queanbeyan NSW 2620.
Tel: (616) 297 7734
E-mail: azappia@spirit.com.au

CANADA
Canadian Friends of Burma,
145 Spruce Street, Suite 206, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6P1. Tel: (613) 237 8056 Fax: (613) 563 0017 E-mail: cfob@web.apc.org Web: http://www.cfob.org/

THAILAND
Burma Issues, PO Box 1076,
Silom Post Office, Bangkok 10504.
E-mail: durham@mozart.inet.co.th
Web: http://www.signposts.uts.edu.au/contacts/Burma/Media/491.html

UK
The Burma Campaign UK
Third Floor, Bickerton House
Bickerton Road
London, UK
N19 5JT7
Tel: (20) 7281 7377
Fax: (20) 7272 3559
Email: info@burmacampaign.org.uk
Website: www.burmacampaign.org.uk

US
Franklin Research and Development,
711 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02111.
Tel: (617) 423 6655 Fax: (617) 482 6179
E-mail: simon_billenness@cybercom.net
Human Rights Watch/Asia, 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: (1) 212 290-4700, Fax: (1) 212 736-1300 E-mail: hrwnyc@hrw.org Web: http://www.hrw.org/asia/index.php

INTERNATIONAL
Free Burma Coalition website (with links to other Free Burma websites) http://www.freeburmacoalition.org

Randomness

Random is a phrase that my students use all the time, especially the middle school students. More than a few times my homeroom will say to me “that was random” in response to some remark that intrudes upon my discussions of world economics or the wonders of algebra. “Random” is actually one of those remarks that they use that I actually like (unlike “sweet”) and use myself occasionally when one of the little darlings goes off on some tangent. So here are some random thoughts for the day.

Why is it that so many expat websites about Thailand use really garish colors on their sites? I’m thinking particularly of the ones with the black backgrounds and the electric blue (and unreadable) links and bright yellow fonts. Does it have something to do with them spending too much time in the bars of Soi Cowboy or Nana or Patpong?

If you live on the sea with a nice sea breeze constantly cooling you, you should put lots of paper down on the tiles if you’re outside on the balcony spray painting or rust proofing some fittings for your doors or windows (I didn’t and I have lots of outlines now on my balcony tiles of metal fittings.

Why is it that you can go just about anywhere in Southeast Asia and hear expats whine about the same things – the way we’re treated by locals, getting cheated by a girl/boyfriend/ wife or significant other, being made to feel unwelcome by the government, driving practices, and relatives? Are we the same? Are they the same?

Why is it that expats who have no understanding of and no interest in Islam move to countries that are predominately Muslim and then complain about it (almost always secretly) incessantly? I have a number of issues about the interpretation of the Qu’ran and the practices that are justified by referring to the Qu’ran, but I always make them publically.

Why don’t they sell Gouda cheese in Singaraja?

Beats, Bali, and Hallucinations

Another day of fasting. Went out today to buy some thingies for the windows because the original ones are rusted. It’s hotter here in Singaraja than it is in Sumbawa, and small as it is, Singaraja is still a city with noise and pollution. So I felt hotter than usual. I’m writing this as the sun prepares to disappear and I wait to open the fast and have dinner with the family, most of whom I haven’t seen today. Right, the time now. It’s that time in the fast when the mind and body begin to feel like they are in the midst of an lsd trip. Reality does get bent some – not totally distorted, but twisted just a bit, and the response time is slowed down – well enough that I don’t like having long conversations with people because I’m never quite sure what they’re saying.

I’d be sitting out on the balcony right now having my sundown scotch if it wasn’t Ramadan but instead I’m watching the sun through the window as it descends while I type this. I just finished reading an interesting piece on Kerouac and On the Road as this is the 50th anniversary of its publication. The piece is well written, and I take pleasure in reading it; it’s a sensuous pleasure as physical as if I could touch the text, smell the ink, feel the weight of the magazine in my hands, but I’m online and can’t, but I do nonetheless, and I wonder if it’s like the people that feel limbs that have been amputated. What will the sensuousness of reading exist as for a future generation that doesn’t have books or magazines?

Robert is coming over this evening for a few drinks after the fast is over. Putu will be here too although he rarely drinks. I’ll have some cigarettes tonight as well to celebrate On the Road.

I just took a look at the Kerouac piece again and notice something moving on the page. Hmm, a hallucination? No, the New Yorker has an animated cartoon. I take a look at the page again. I love the New Yorker.

retirement- revised

The issue of what someone needs to retire on and how much that might cost is always a topic of discussion on expat forums. So what is my ideal of the essentials?

Books (this is about one book per month) 180,000
Internet ( I’m estimating this, I hope it’s less) 300,000
Website Server 144,000
Indovision (satellite tv so I can watch baseball) 300,000
Tech Stuff (software, hardware, ink, etc.) 250,000
Car registration (due yearly, saved monthly) 120,000
Motorbike registration (same) 19,000
Motorbike 2 registration (same as car) 19,000
School fees (for the 4 kids) 400,000
Visa (my retirement visa) 500,000
Clothes (for the kids) 500,000
Phone (my phone that I use for the internet) 120,000
Medical (whole family) 900,000
Insurance (me) 1,000,000

All this totals to 4,932,000 per month. It’s not exactly living like a hermit, but it’s what I see as living a fairly conservative lifestyle. My 7th/8th grade Social Studies class is just finishing a unit about economics and creating a budget was one of their assignments. They found my budget fairly barebones.

I had a comment from Brandon of The Java Jive blog about a few of the figures in my retirement budget and, while meaning to get an answer out, I’ve gotten bogged down in the quarterly migration from Sumbawa to Bali. So here’s my clarification about the above.

Brandon noted that the budget for books seemed rather slim – he’s a big reader and according to my relatives so I am. While living in Sumbawa and teaching and tending to the kids and animals and doing house repairs, I tend to only read for about 15 minutes before bed so finishing a book takes forever. I know that I’m going to be reading a lot more when I’m retired, but I spend several hours a day sorting through the various feeds from wire services, newspapers, journals, websites, and blogs and all of that is free. During the early days of the web I used a little slogan at the end of my emails that read, “Information wants to be free” (it wasn’t my creation, I grabbed it from a number of people that were using it as well) and I’m still of the opinion that the real revolutionary function of the internet is to provide free information so that the playing field is somewhat leveled from what is was in the past. Well…

Travel. I was asked about this as well. I’m not planning on doing much travel other than some local travel around the island. I’ve never been a very good tourist. I know people who can (or believe they can) charactize an island or country after a few days or weeks. I can’t do that and if I can’t get at what life is life on a daily basis for people, travel is only marginally interesting. But I am interested in spending time in various parts of the island just for information purposes.

Food. Ah, we do need to eat, and anyone who lives with an Indonesian knows that a large part of their time is spent either discussing food, preparing it, or consuming it. Food falls under my wife’s budget that isn’t included here. I also don’t have electricity costs or water or land taxes down in my budget because my wife deals with those. She gets 11 million a month to pay for all of that that includes the kids jajan requests and all the miscellaneous stuff that I don’t want to deal with.

So we have a total budget that really equals about 16 million a month. This is a fairly conservative budget for an expat. Getting down to local realities, this is probably about 8 times what our neighbors have to spend (if not more). This is something that I regularly remind the kids of – we’re fairly lucky in that we have some money. Oh yeah, zakat isn’t included here – that comes out of my slush fund.

Back in Bali - Stage 2

Right. Back in Bali once again after the usual long trip except this time it was made longer and more difficult by the fact that all of us except our youngest, Meredith, were fasting. The trip was actually on the fast side as it took us 15 ½ hours to make it door to door from Sumbawa to Bali. My failing eyesight in my right eye makes driving at night a problem, but we made it through the usual mad traffic in Bali safely.

Mercedes was glad (to say the least) to see all of us – Rebecca even hugged Mercedes when we arrived which, considering how the two continually fight when they are together, was a nice touch. My friends, Robert and Putu, showed up to welcome us and Robert gave me a nice bottle of scotch as a welcome home present.

No one got to sleep before 12 and everyone was up at 3 to eat before another day of fasting. Su woke up at six to go to the market which left me alone for most of the day. I spent that time unpacking all the stuff that I brought with me as part of this phase for the big move next June when I quit working.

I began setting up my file cabinet to make it functional again after four plus years of serving as a storage device for miscellaneous junk. Then I spent hours on the computer setting up bookmarks on my iMac which I brought with me and which will stay here – I’ll use my windows machine in Sumbawa for the remainder of my time there.

Mercedes came up and spent a few hours just chatting about her life and helping me unpack – as well as helping herself to some of my office supplies. It was good to spend some time with her after the 10 weeks apart.

I brought a load of work with me which I’ll get to in a few days; right now I’m doing my retirement stuff which gives me a feeling that I’ll get there eventually. I have to write a report for the Board on primary computer use.

I uploaded the first of my attempts at doing digital 3d art with Bryce. I’ve introduced this to my students in 3rd – 8th grade and they love it. But I want to get a little beyond just having them make nice landscapes. I printed out the manual, and I’m going to work on developing my skills with this program. I’m also going to clean up the podcast page on cyberbali and do a few podcasts from here. The kids enjoy doing the podcasts, and they’re great to use with the students because they develop skills in a variety of areas: they had to write out scripts to use (no stream of consciousness stuff), sort through a mass of sound tracks to use as background music (this was optional – the younger guys had some trouble with that so we skipped it for them), then they had to record their program and edit it so that it sounds smooth when we broadcast it on Friday mornings before assemblies. If I was going to be around for a few more years, I’d do a lot more work with the podcasting, but as it is, we’ll do some basics for now.

Unfortunatley, the company that owns the school has blocked us uploading any multimedia files so we can’t put the podcasts online anymore. I’m going to do that from here if I can find all the work that the kids did.

I received some new photos of my cute granddaughter today which the family loves seeing. I have to print them out for all the kids to put in their rooms.

We opened the fast this evening with all of the family having dinner together which is something that we rarely do – generally everyone eats when they’re hungry so it was really enjoyable to have dinner together.

And that ends the first day back home.

(The photo is one of the papaya trees that I cut down last week. I couldn’t upload the photo to the blog because of the new restrictions on uploading graphics)

Hermits, Thoreau, Retirement and the Essentials of Life

I’ve been reading an interesting book called Hermits by Peter French. I’m at the section of the book about Thoreau. I haven’t read Walden since high school, but I’ve just dug a copy out in my library here in Sumbawa. I want to go back and read it again after I finish Hermits. French writes that Thoreau, “…distinguished between the activities necessary o maintain life and those on which a free individual would choose to spend his time. The former were drudgery, the latter worthwhile. The good life should be organized to maximize free time and minimize drudgery. In fact his declared aim was to reverse the biblical injunction and labour for one day only, saving the other six for ‘free time’.

Additionally, he notes that Thoreau followed Socrates in seeing how many things he could live without so that he would not become a slave to working in order to purchase things which were really luxuries and comforts that had become to be seen as necessities.

So the point of all this - it’s related to a degree to my planned retirement. I’ve been working on paring my life down to what I see as essentials for me. The idea is to spend time with my family, friends, and myself to rediscover who I am and be available for my children before they are grown and gone.

The issue of what someone needs to retire on and how much that might cost is always a topic of discussion on expat forums. So what is my ideal of the essentials?

Books (this is about one book per month) 180,000

Internet ( I’m estimating this, I hope it’s less) 300,000

Website Server 144,000

Indovision (satellite tv so I can watch baseball) 300,000

Tech Stuff (software, hardware, ink, etc.) 250,000

Car registration (due yearly, saved monthly) 120,000

Motorbike registration (same) 19,000

Motorbike 2 registration (same as car) 19,000

School fees (for the 4 kids) 400,000

Visa (my retirement visa) 500,000

Clothes (for the kids) 500,000

Phone (my phone that I use for the internet) 120,000

Medical (whole family) 900,000

Insurance (me) 1,000,000

All this totals to 4,932,000 per month. It’s not exactly living like a hermit, but it’s what I see as living a fairly conservative lifestyle. My 7^th/8^th grade Social Studies class are just finishing a unit about economics and creating a budget was one of their assignments. They found my budget fairly barebones. More on budgeting for expats later.

House repairs and things to do after retiremen

With less than a week to go before we leave for Bali (does it sound like I’m excited about going home to see my eldest daughter?), we are working on doing repairs to the house. We have a number of cracks in the walls from the numerous earthquakes over the past four years. We’re working on fixing them today as well as cutting down some papaya trees that have just grown up around the house by themselves. One of the interesting things about papaya trees is that they are amazingly easy to grow – just throw some seeds down and you have some trees. We have a number too close to the house and we’re worried about what the roots will do to the house and the little sidewalk that runs along the side of the house.

I cut down two papaya trees this morning while a couple of guys were working on repairing the wall. Why are we doing all of this now – we still have another eight months before I stop working? I’m somewhat compulsive, and I want to get the house in shape to be either sold or rented out. The first thing is to fix the cracks in the walls, and then we’ll work on changing many of the ceiling panels which are water stained. Of course, now that we have been fixing the cracks in the walls, we’ll need to paint them as well.

I do have a fascination with doing work on the house which I’ve noted before. Thoreau says, “I’ve never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house.” Hmm.

While I’m on Thoreau, he responded to friends who asked what he was going to do when he set off to live at Walden Pond, “Will it not be enough to watch the progress of the seasons?” Good enough. Being a bit compulsive, I’ve set a bit more of a program for myself. This is what I have for things to do in life after teaching.

1. Cook breakfast for the kids

2. Drive kids to school

3. Pick kids up from school.

4. Correspondence with family and friends

5. Reading online newspapers

6. General web surfing to see what is new on the internet.

7. Developing the cyberbali site to have more lessons that teachers can use with quick to use directions on how to use them.

8. Contributing to the forums that I belong to – expat forums, education forums, 3d forums.

9. Exercising daily – walking, swimming, lifting weights.

10. Cleaning the house.

11. Writing my blog daily.

12. Finishing the novel that I started 20 years ago.

13. Finishing the book on Islam and Hinduism that I started 10 years ago.

14. Reading.

15. Doing house repairs.

16. visiting friends.

17. Learning how to use 3D graphics programs.

18. Learning Balinese.

19. Learning Arabic.

20. Learning how to program in Java and setting up some easy lessons online for teachers.

21. Podcasting.

22. Go to Mecca.

23. Make a series of videos about Indonesia.

24. Take a biology class online.

Ramadan, Fasting, and Thinking of Bali

A Ramadan Saturday. We all woke up at 3:30 am to have breakfast and then went back to sleep. It’s one of those days when none of us have to work or go to school. Su and I got out of bed at 7 and I started watching the Yankees and Red Sox. It looked like the Yankees were going to go down, but the Yankees came back in the 8^th and took the lead. Mariano came in to work the 9^th and the leadoff hitter immediately got on base, but Mariano struck out the next batter and the fourth batter to end the inning and the game. Nice to see the Yankees beat the Red Sox. The game finished just at noon. What a monster – five hours. Fortunately I have nothing special to do today except fast and do a little school work. Sam and Rebecca are both fasting as well.

We’re all getting psyched up about going to Bali next Saturday, and Mercedes really misses being around her immediate family so it’s going to be great for all of us. The drive over should be interesting as we’ll all be fasting, but travelers get an exemption for the day of their trip which they can make up later. The kids will probably take it; I’m not sure about Su and me. Once we begin fasting, we like to keep it up rather than break the string for a special reason.

According to internet reports, there are supposed to be over 100 yachts anchored along the north coast next week. If so there will probably be a number just in front of our house – that should prove to be interesting. Other than that, I don’t think that there will be much going on while I’m in Bali. Mostly I’ll be working on the websites, getting photos taken for my visa next year, visiting a few friends, getting my Mac set up, fixing a few more windows on the third floor, and just hanging out seeing what Mercedes is doing. I want to get a look at her campus as well while I’m there.

Since Ramadan started every morning on my way to work, I pass groups of people out walking along the road on their way to the beach. Early morning exercise. I want to do that next year when I'm retired.

Ramadan

Ramadan started today in Indonesia. Su, the kids, and I were up at 3:30 to eat. I went back to sleep at 4, but did not have much luck in actually sleeping. I'm not one of those people who can go back to sleep easily so the period when Ramadan intersects with work is a bit of a stretch in terms of being tired - the actually fasting is pretty simple, especially if you think about why you are fasting and what it is supposed to represent.

The Dry Season

We’re deep in to the dry season and, once again, there’s no water. We’re doing a somewhat regular routine of two days of no running water and then two days of a little running water – just enough so that we can fill up jerry cans and tanks and tubs to last for the days of no water. The word is that the village is going to dig another well – I hope so.

Despite not having much water, our tomato crop is in, and we have hundreds of fresh tomatoes along with a few heads of cauliflower and some pumpkins. I’ve eaten the tomatoes and cauliflower – for some reason I didn’t get any of the pumpkins. I’m looking forward to mango season which should be here in a few months.

We have two more really hectic weeks before our two-week vacation. Vacation corresponds with part of Ramadan; so the two weeks that I’m going to be on vacation are two of the four weeks that I’ll be fasting. I’ll be in Bali for those two weeks to see Mercedes, my oldest daughter, and to take care of some of the business that needs to be done before retirement. On this trip, I’ll be getting photos ready for the retirement visa documents. I want all the paperwork prepared several months before I’ll need it, so this will be my key focus during this vacation. I’ll also do some school work as usual – lesson plans for the next term, some work on new tech things that I want to do, and some writing. When I’m fasting in Bali, I rarely leave the house for more than an hour or so as it’s just too hot usually.

We’ve had a few people contact us who are interested in buying the house. The question now is whether to sell it now or rent it out for a few years and then sell it later. That’s something that Su and I will probably be discussing for the next few months.

Grandparenthood

Well, my son and daughter-in-law had their first child - a girl. They're all fine, and I'm relieved as I hadn't heard anything for a while and was getting a bit concerned. So now I'm a grandfather. It's going to take some time to get used to this I think. More on this later as students are coming in really early to complete a social studies assignment that's due today.

The Last August

I’ve just finished my last August as a teacher so two months of working have now passed. I haven’t taken a look at my little retirement boat on the cyberbali.com site, but I know it is now in the 9 month period. As I continue to move towards retirement, the emotions swirling round the next stage of the life cycle become more heavily mixed than when I first decided that it was time to retire. I read an article the other day about retirement that quoted an academic who had been retired for a few years and compared the first year of retirement to the feeling of playing hooky from school. Just planning out today, I keep thinking that it would be nice if I had more time to get this and that done because two days is just not enough to do all the things that I would like to do, especially during baseball season when I put in a half-day of work every Saturday.

Mini book review

Book: Java: A Traveller’s Anthology

Compiled and introduced by James R. Rush, this anthology is part of the traveller’s series published by Oxford University Press. Java has 35 travel accounts by Westerners who landed in Java during the period 1330 through the 1980s. Some of these tales are intentionally quite humorous such as S.J Perelman’s account or the one titled, “John and Iris do Jogya;” others are unintentionally humorous such as Eliza Scidmore’s description of the Javanese as “…a little people, and one feels the same indulgent, protective sense as towards the Japanese.” Wow, talk about colonialism. This is one of those books for the specialist on Java or Indonesia.